Blood Moon (Drake Chronicles) [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

If you have NOT read the previous books in the DRAKE CHRONICLES please read with caution. There are some spoilers that were unavoidable. Proceed with caution . . .

First, can you sit there and tell me you didn't just drool all over this cover? Well, maybe not all over it but drool because of it. Lucy and Nicholas *sigh* Seriously, could the cover not be any hotter? Sadly, there wasn't many `hot' scenes between the two as the cover would suggest. But that's OK because there's a novella with those two with plenty of kissing (and vampire killing, of course).

Now, on to the actual story, now that all the drool is cleaned up. Nicholas and Lucy are my absolutely favorites in this series, as they are for a lot of other fans as well. However, there's not one Drake family member I dislike. I'd like to say I love them all as equally but some we don't know as well as other. I am rather fond of Quinn and Connor, to be honest. This book was told from Lucy, Nicholas & Solange's points of view.

If I'm being honest, Solange pissed me off. She pissed me off in the last book too but not as much. I wanted to slap her with a stupid stick...a few times, actually. She's special, we all know this but her behavior was just uncalled for. Or was it? My opinion of Solange changes closer toward the end of the book (I'm still mad at her, though).

Lucy is stuck at the Helios-Ra school and is, in a sense, being bullied by the other students because she's kissing vampires instead of killing them. I think they're just jealous they're single and Lucy's boyfriend is smoking hot. ;-) But seriously, Lucy isn't used to having all this hatred thrown at her and it makes me for an awkward time learning to be a hunter.

Nicholas, oh boy did my heart break for him in this book. I hope I'm not giving anything away by this but he was kidnapped and tortured by people I still have no idea who they are (though I have an idea but we'll see if I'm right next book) and somehow he escaped.

The Drake family is fighting amongst themselves, which has never happened. Well, they jokingly fight amongst themselves but they're family, everyone does it. This isn't that kind of fighting and it's making me sad and scared at the same time. I truly hope they all survive the next book but I'm not sure that's going to be possible. Any member of this family falls and I can assure you, tears will fall as well.

Six month wait isn't too bad though it's going to be long enough. If you must know, I'm a huge fan of this series and if you are just reading this review without having read any other Drake books then I ask you, why? Go back to the beginning with Hearts at Stake and fall in love with this family like I have. I absolutely recommend this book once you've read the previous four. Alyxandra Harvey, that ending was brutal.

I love the series and couldn't wait to continue with Lucy, Nicholas and Solange but the cliffhanger came too soon in a story that was all over the place, and consequently this is a disappointing book. However there is something about the Drake Family and the characters they attract that grab you and keep you reading and I didn't have the heart to give it three stars. I have to be honest and say that I did come very close. The POVs were a little too hard and fast, nothing is resolved and though most of the time we don't mind as reality dictates lives that way but the whole book is unresolved issues,and most of the time we don't really understand the point of the issue. Where was the plot in this as the novel seemed like a filler until the next one. The novel was also far too short and thus so small in face of the big cliffhanger. Of course the author needs a hook for the next book but give us something for this one. Well, to be fair she does in the form of a bonus story about Liam and Helen. Nice although the characters were difficult to recognise but to be fair they had the excuse that they were also very young at the time. Perhaps that story could have been woven in through out Blood Moon as it does seem to mirror Lucy and Nicholas and their relationship, and this would have given more body to the book. Over all I would have rathered more meat, or should I say more blood at this particular time in the Drake Chronicles.

I have been waiting for this novel since I finished Bleeding Hearts. I've been a fan of this series since Hearts at Stake, and I've thoroughly enjoyed every book. However, Blood Moon fell flat for me. The novel was nothing like Harvey's former work, and Solange has gotten so annoying that I wanted to throw my Kindle out the window every time a chapter said it was being told from her POV (The POV alternated between Lucy, Solange, and Nicholas. Keiran narrated the epilogue). The pacing was slow, the plot was scattered, it ended on a cliffhanger and there was a distracting error. I'm pretty disappointed in this installment. I'll be reading the 6th (and perhaps final?) book in the series, just to see what happens. Maybe it'll be as good as the previous four were.

My biggest pet peeve in this novel was Solange. She has turned into such a brat, I can't stand to read anything from her POV anymore. All she did was whine about how no one understands her and how hard her life is, then she throws fits, makes stupid decisions, and whines some more. Seriously, I wanted to stake her. I finally found out what was going on with her, but it would have been much more effective had that been disclosed earlier in the novel. Then maybe I wouldn't have been so irritated at her. I had to put the book down and walk away during every chapter she narrated. It took me five freaking days to read this book because of that. I really did not enjoy her chapters at all.

There was so much going on in the plot that I couldn't really keep up. Apparently neither could Harvey because a lot of balls seemed to be dropped. Maybe loose ends will be tied up in the next book, but this one ended with nothing being answered. Literally nothing was resolved, and half of the plot threads started and didn't really progress at all. I mean sure, every new thing kept getting mentioned, but instead of actually, oh I don't know, wrapping something up, Harvey just kept introducing new problems. It got to be ridiculous. I don't even remember what the book was about, and I just finished it. And the cliffhanger is just ridiculous. Basically, Harvey had two characters act really out of character, then she ended it. Yea, thanks for that. There weren't enough unresolved plot threads already. I'm glad you added a couple of more.

The error also took me out of the story. One error, which really bugged the crap out of me for about four chapters after I read it, was when Lucy was checking to see if her cell phone was working. She said it had a dial tone. Cell phones don't, and as far as I know, never have had dial tones. I mean everyone has a cell phone. Harvey should have known better than to write that, and an editor should have caught that and realized the mistake as well.

Overall, I'm really disappointed in this book. It's not horrible, and I finished it, but I expected more from Harvey and this series. If you're a fan of the Drake Chronicles, then I recommend you read it, if nothing else, just to know what happens next. For now, I'll just hope that Book #6 is better.